


Concussions and Curses

by NaomiJameston



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Curses, F/M, HEA, Hogsmeade, Hogwarts Professors, movie canon, warning: vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:42:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24463705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaomiJameston/pseuds/NaomiJameston
Summary: After Professor Hermione Granger gets assigned to partner Professor Severus Snape as Hogsmeade chaperone, she's pretty miffed when he ditches her. But after a blizzard and a life-threatening injury, perhaps he can make up for it?
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 31
Kudos: 320





	Concussions and Curses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LunaP999](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaP999/gifts).



> A gift for LunaP999, based on her prompt: "Something involving marriage, marriage law, and/or teachers." 2 out of 3 isn't bad? :)
> 
> Warning: Mention of vomit, past trauma, pain.

“Well,” Severus said quietly, “this is not how I expected this day to go.”

Beside him, Professor Hermione Granger, teacher of Transfiguration at Hogwarts, lay panting. She gulped air as though there wasn’t enough of it but huffed out a laugh.

“Yeah. This was definitely not on my radar today.”

“Radar?”

She waved a hand. “Figure of speech. Don’t worry about it.”

He “hmm”ed under his breath and gathered her in close to his side. She rested her head on the divot in his shoulder that seemed to have been made just for her. They pressed together as though they were made from the same mould. Hermione curled her fingers in the sparse hair on his chest, still slick with sweat. Severus lazily drew similar circles on her similarly sweaty shoulder, content to let exhaustion overtake him.

“Severus? Is this real?” she finally whispered with trepidation. Severus opened one eye and smirked.

“If you’re asking for a repeat performance, you’ll have to grant me an indulgence. I’m not as young as I once was.”

She snickered. “Banish the thought. I’d hate to tax your heart.”

He closed his eyes again. “I know what you’re doing. If twelve orgasms isn’t enough to satisfy you-”

“I’m not suggesting that and please have mercy when we go again. I’m a little oversensitive now.” She huffed out a breath, stirring the hair she twirled in her fingers. “I’m just… this seems like a dream. Doesn’t it?”

Severus sat up, pulling her with him so that she sat across his lap. He lowered his face close to hers, his eyes locked intently on her own. Her lips parted of their own accord, desperate to be kissed again. Severus smiled widely, opened his mouth-

Her alarm shrieked right in her ear.

Hermione reared up in shock, accidentally knocking both the alarm and Crookshanks to the floor. The alarm shattered and Crooks ran from the room howling and hissing. Her heart pounding, Hermione swept a hand over her face before collapsing back in a groan.

“Of course,” she muttered. “Of fucking course it was a dream, you ninny. He doesn’t even know you exist.”

Her sheets were soaked all around her and between her legs ached desperately. She could almost feel Dream Severus’ hands as he crept nearer to her core. Whispered secrets against her skin. Kissed higher. Nibbled. Licked.

“Stop it,” she told herself firmly, willing the arousal away like it was a begging dog. But it nagged at her; it almost hurt, the longing between her thighs becoming a pinching ache. But she did her best to ignore it as she rose from her bed, flicking her wand at it to remove the soiled sheets. She cast a freshening charm on both the bed and the room, removing the smell of sex as best she could. 

“Come on, Hermione,” she said. “A cold shower will do you wonders.”

The last of her arousal died a screaming death.

\-----

“Right then,” Headmistress Minerva McGonagall said, clapping her hands to bring the staff meeting to order. Hermione turned from her fascinating conversation with Professor Vector with regret. They’d been deciding if there was some way to combine Arithmancy with Transfiguration, at least on paper. They both had some promising ideas on how to work out the calculations and Hermione was nearly ravenous with her desire to get started working out the details. 

“But alas, duty calls,” Septima whispered as they parted to their assigned seats. Hermione tried to keep her snickering to a minimum but Minerva’s glare told her she hadn’t succeeded. Hermione settled into her seat with a suitably chastised grimace that threatened to burst into laughter again at the ridiculous faces Septima was making.

“If we’re all in order?” Minerva glared at the two of them until they calmed. She nodded. “Thank you. I’m pleased to tell you all that repairs on the castle have finally been completed-”

“Huzzah!” Professor Flitwick shouted, nearly toppling his chair over in glee. His section of the castle had been particularly hard hit in the final battle and some nasty curses had clung to the stones with a vengeance. Only by employing three full time curse breakers had they finally released the spells, but it had taken many years. Filius had been stuck in the dungeons with Severus the entire time, and though neither complained about the close proximity, there was a pinchedness in their features when they discussed the arrangement. But while Filius was quite loud in his glee, Severus looked merely bored.

Hermione caught herself just before she sighed as she looked at him and only years as a teacher of teenagers prevented the blush she felt on her chest from rising to her face. 

Minerva continued to speak about improvements made to the castle in the near decade since the final battle and Hermione let her mind wander. She imagined what it would be like if  _ she  _ had been forced into the dungeons instead.

To be so close to him every day. To see him in the hallways. To smell him as she passed his office. His quarters were inside, surely. She wondered what they were like. Were they dark and solid, foreboding like him? Was he Spartan in his furnishings, or hedonistic? Was he a closet sadist? Did he have a room full of sensual toys? Would he use them on her? Or would he hold her against the wall as he thrust into her willing body over and over and-

“And our final bit of business,” Minerva said with a disgruntled twist of her lips, “is the assignment of chaperones for the upcoming Hogsmeade weekend.”

Hermione joined the others in their groaning, both grateful and annoyed at the interruption of her thoughts. 

‘Merlin but I’m getting desperate,’ she thought. Perhaps it was time to take up Lavender on her enterprising new business. The girl had become the CEO of an internationally renowned sex toy company and had become an overnight sensation. Hermione had funded her first experiments and Lavender had repaid her a million fold, literally. But Hermione had never tried the products she funded. ‘Perhaps it’s time to change that.’

“And lastly, Hermione. You’re with Severus on Sunday afternoon.” Minerva smiled at her, apparently having forgotten her previous annoyance. “Thankfully the shops are closing early and the students will find little to do after 3pm so you’ll likely have an easy shift.”

Hermione groaned good-naturedly. “Why would you curse me like that, Minerva? Now I’m sure to have the worst miscreants.”

“I’ll be sure you do,” Minerva replied teasingly. She flicked her wand and a full spread of tea appeared on the table. “Do stay and indulge, everyone. There’s nothing better than tea for fortifying the nerves.”

Hermione helped herself to a plate and piled it high with sandwiches and her favorite tiny cookies, but Severus stood and bowed to the assembly.

“Your indulgence, Minerva, but I have several potions that will not wait. Another time, perhaps.”

Minerva barely acknowledged him, used to his reluctance to stay after meetings and his paper-thin excuses, and fluttered her fingers at him in permission without turning from her conversation with Flitwick. No one looked up as he left but Hermione watched him from under her eyelashes. She’d seen the way his eyes pulled tight just at the corners, like he was clenching his teeth without moving his jaw- a handy trick, that!- at being so ignored. Her heart went out to him. It couldn’t be easy on anyone to have carried such a burden of serving two masters for so long and being so reviled when the war was over.

\-----

The rest of the week went surprisingly smoothly. Too smoothly, in fact, and Hermione dreaded the weekend. She crossed her fingers and sent a wish to the heavens that the students would have their fill of pranks and mischief on Saturday and leave her Sunday relatively quiet. It was a fool’s wish, she knew, but one she made all the same.

Sunday dawned cold and wet, with the clouds being unable to decide between rain and snow, and settling somewhere in between. Many of the students who had gone to Hogsmeade the day before were content to stay in the castle instead and Hermione had a fleeting hope that perhaps she wouldn’t need to chaperone at all.

But her hopes were dashed as she watched a large crowd gather in the main entrance hall directly after breakfast. She noted with displeasure that several of the students had neglected their hats or scarves or coats, and one third year had forgotten his shoes entirely. She and the prefects were able to round up the missing materials in due time, but Severus didn’t appear. She stalled for a few minutes but one of the students began loudly talking about the dung bombs he’d bought the previous day and she felt it was time to release the crowd.

She huddled in her many layers of heating spells as the doors opened but the wind still tore through her as though she were nude. She watched the cavorting students race each other down the path, and several sixth years had cast small snow charms to create snowballs which they tossed at each other with cheerful battle cries. None of  _ them _ seemed to mind the cold, she groused to herself. But then, none of them had been through a war and come out the other side with so much curse damage. The wind blew harder and she pulled her throbbing arm in tighter. It always hurt so much more in the cold, worse than any other scars. The nasty one on her chest barely twinged anymore. The various other scars- magic, cursed, or otherwise- had their various aches and pains, but her arm never stopped.

She sent a hot curse to Hell for Bellatrix and another one to Severus for abandoning her. He was probably suffering from the cold as much as she was, but still. He was not here for her to complain to, or at least look at, and that was just mean. She chuckled bitterly. No arousing thoughts today for sure. Her knickers would freeze first.

Her charges roamed from store to store, the smarter ones finding tables at Madame Puddifoot’s and The Three Broomsticks. The braver souls wandered out to The Shrieking Shack and Hermione didn’t bother chasing them down. The ones who snuck into the Hog’s Head, however, she did. Aberforth was always in a foul mood in cold weather. Well, fouler than normal, anyway. He’d been known to pull his wand on a student or two who got uppity during the Scottish winter storms. Hermione was only one teacher and she would not be rounding everyone up early because someone’s ear had been removed. Again.

The clouds finally settled on snow just after noon and it came down just as hard and fast as the rain mix had. Thick, fluffy puffs of snow obscured her vision of the shops on the other side of the street. When the wind picked up, she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. She caught the eye of one of her prefects and directed the sixth year boy to start rounding up students. She cast her Patronus and sent her otter out to the Shrieking Shack to gather the students there. In the ten minutes it took those students to join the rest, the storm had gone feral. The wind blew from every direction, causing snow to fly wildly. She could barely see and could hear even less, but the castle seemed to be above the worst of the storm.

“Can you cast a shield?” she asked the same sixth year. He nodded and cast it. Hermione nodded. “Good. You and the other prefects flank the students. We’ll keep them between us and go slowly.”

“Professor?” a gangly third year girl asked her. “I can’t find Liesel, ma’am.”

“Liesel Jacobson?” Hermione asked the girl, who nodded rapidly. “You’re sure she was here?”

The girl nodded again and Hermione quickly counted the students. Sure enough, she was missing one. She looked to the castle, her prefects, and down to the scared girl in front of her, and she summoned a warm smile with difficulty.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “You stay with these older students and I’ll find her myself, all right?”

The girl nodded rapidly and a seventh year took her hand to pull her into the middle of the pack of students. Hermione nodded her thanks.

“If anyone besides a prefect can cast a shield, now would be a good time to do so. Go slow; do not- so help you me- lose anyone. Count students every five minutes. Yes, I’m being serious, Andres. Every. Five. Minutes. And someone send me a patronus when you arrive safely. I’m in no mood to rescue anyone else today.”

Her prefects nodded as one, several others in the crowd cast shields, and they were off, marching imperfectly like a rolled up millipede. The effect was almost amusing enough to make Hermione forget that she had a missing student and needed to brave the blizzard on her own. She cast a shield around herself and slightly ahead to keep the wind off her, and she began to search methodically.

No one in Zonko’s, Honeydukes, or Madame Puddifoot’s had seen the missing girl. The Hog’s Head was closed and locked, and Aberforth didn’t reply to her patronus. The other shops were closing, too, until only The Three Broomsticks remained open. Hermione was becoming frantic. The girl was tiny, even for a third year. Not a scrap of fat on her. She was often picked on for being so skinny. And Muggleborn. And redhead. And- oh, any number of things. The girl gave as good as she got, being London born-and-bred, but her feelings often got hurt and she would sometimes hide.

Hermione swung into The Three Broomsticks at a run.

“Rosemerta, any sign?” she gasped. Rosmerta shook her hear sadly.

“None, Professor. I sent my patronus out to look for her, but nothing. You don’t think she’s… well…” Rosmerta trailed off darkly. Hermione shook her head with vehemence.

“No, she’s too smart to be taken out by a blizzard and I’ll tell her that myself as soon as I find the chit. Let me know if-” But as she turned to leave, she ran nose first into a very solid chest, bounced off, and landed flat on the floor. Her head cracked against the wood and the edges of her vision fluttered in and out.

“Granger!” a man’s voice shouted in alarm.

“Oh Professor!” Rosmerta cried. Hermione tried to tell her she was all right, but her mouth refused to move and only a strangled choking sound came from her throat.

“Rosmerta, would you kindly take Miss Jacobson and tend to her while I do the same for Mi- err, Professor Granger?”

“Of course, Professor Snape.” Hermione could hear cloth rustling and a young girl’s sniffling as Rosmerta led her away. “My dearling, where have you been? We’ve been worried sick!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, truly I am. I was trying to go back to Hogwarts but I lost the path and-” Hermione couldn’t hear anything more as her body lifted in the air and floated up the stairs to an empty room above the baroom. 

“Can you hear me, Granger?” Severus asked. Hermione tried to nod but her head swam with the effort. Severus tutted at her dismissively. “Oh yes, let’s try to move our head while both concussed  _ and _ floating. Aren’t you supposed to be brilliant, Granger?”

Hermione wanted to growl but could only manage a low gurgle in the back of her throat. Severus didn’t acknowledge it, instead directing her body to lie in the middle of a bed and setting her down more gently than she expected. Of course, with a concussion it should have been expected that he’d be gentle, but-

“I’m not a complete monster, you know.”

Hermione flinched then went completely still. She hadn’t said that outloud, had she?

“Of course not. You’ve done something pretty awful to your head and are apparently incapable of speech. Quite an improvement, I’d say, over your usual shrieking-”

Hey!

“But alas, your thoughts lack the filter your mouth occasionally employs.” He walked around the bed, returning to her vision. He was casting several diagnosis spells over her. She raised an eyebrow, deeply impressed. She hadn’t realized he knew such high level healing spells, even if they were only diagnostic.

“Yes, well,” he said, amusement tipping his voice slightly toward warm, “I’m usually underneath these particular spells. I have to admit that being on this side is a new and novel experience. Do let me enjoy it.”

Oh, by all means carry on then, she thought at him sarcastically. Severus made an odd strangling sound and she realized that he’d been holding back a laugh. It warmed her oddly to know that on some level he perhaps found her amusing.

“I do indeed. What else could I find you when you’ve managed to concuss yourself by bouncing off me?”

The warmth fled as though it never existed, replaced with self-pity and pouting.

You could try being a bit sympathetic, she thought. Severus smirked.

“I could, yes. But I won’t.  _ You _ didn’t look where you were going.” He made several oddly graceful movements with his wand, and the pain in Hermione’s head eased.

“Oh thank Merlin,” she moaned aloud.

“Or thank me,” Severus wrinkled his nose at her. “Merlin’s been dead for more than a thousand years, you know.” 

“And thank you as well, then.” 

Severus dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Can you wiggle your hands at all? And your feet?”

Hermione dutifully kicked her feet but when she tried to bend her wrists, pain shot up her left arm. She clutched it with a hoarse cry as it throbbed in time with her heartbeat. The pain rose until it felt as though it writhed beneath her skin like a snake. She rolled onto her side and heaved.

Warm hands came around her, pulling her hair back from her face as her stomach squeezed in time with her throbbing arm. The pain continued, grew, elongated until she couldn’t feel one pulse end and the next begin. Her stomach twisted itself until she was sure that there was absolutely nothing left in her from the last decade. One of the hands pulled away and she cried from the loss of its comforting weight, knowing she was being utterly ridiculous but not caring a whit.

She could hear Severus speaking lowly behind her but her comprehension was lost as the pain rippled through her arm again. His warm hand returned to her shoulder and she wept harder from relief that he wasn’t leaving her.

“Sweet Circe, what did they do to you?” he whispered. Hermione could only shake and cry, unable to take a full breath, let alone speak. She could feel Severus run the edge of his wand down her left sleeve, cutting the fabric of her robes and shirt underneath neatly to expose her flaming skin. “I’m sorry. I’ll repair them after, I promise.”

He touched his finger to her scar.

She screamed.

Harder than she ever had in her life. Harder than when Bellatrix was torturing her. Harder than she’d screamed when she realized her parents were gone to her forever.

Harder than when Ron had told her they needed to talk. Than when he’d asked for the ring back. Than when he’d told her he’d found someone else.

Memories flooded her mind. All the traumas she’d forgotten with age- the bullying and teasing of her early years. Her dashed hopes that Hogwarts would be better. The troll. The whispers behind her back all throughout school. The times those whispers became roars. When Molly had sent her the tiny egg in comparison to Harry and Ron’s. When Molly had told her that Ron was tired of waiting for her to settle down. And why didn’t they have kids? Didn’t she want one of her own?

Harry telling her with joy and trepidation that he and Ginny were expecting. Her promotions at the Ministry coming with more responsibility but the same pay. The leers of her bosses offering to make up the difference if she’d…

Her first weeks at Hogwarts and seeing him again. He looked exactly the same. He sounded- he  _ acted _ exactly the same. But she was different.

She wanted him. She wanted to hold him. To be held by him. To love and be loved and-

He collapsed against her back with a harsh exhalation and Hermione sucked in air as though she’d broken through the surface of the Black Lake. Her hair fell forward to shroud her face as she hung off the bed, sucking in and out with every desperate breath she took.

“Sorry,” he murmured and lifted the dangling bits of hair off her face. They locked gazes like two exhausted soldiers in a war.

He was drenched with sweat as much as she was, his hair and hers hanging in limp, damp clumps. He breathed heavily but not so bad as she. But he smiled.

Truly smiled.

And Hermione fell in love.

She coughed into her fist. “What… what was that?”

He waved his hand and conjured a glass of water that he handed to her.

“That… It’s hard to explain,” he said, leaning back to rest on the headboard by her head. “How much do you know about your condition?”

“My condition?!” She reared up but her vision didn’t fade to grey as it usually did. In fact, she didn’t feel dizzy in the slightest. Her stomach was settled and her arm didn’t throb. Only her throat was sore but the water soothed even that. 

She felt better than she had in years.

Next to her, Severus winced. “A poor choice of words. I meant that curse that caused all of this. Who did it and how?”

Hermione sat up and banished her sick on the floor with a flick of her fingers. She sipped the water slowly.

“Bellatrix Lestrange,” she said. Her arm didn’t throb like it usually did and she pulled her sleeve up to stare at it.

It was healed. The scars had faded nearly to the point of nothingness. She couldn’t feel her pulse through them.

“What did you do?” she asked. Severus took her arm and passed a hand over the scars. He nodded a bit sheepishly.

“Not my finest work. My apologies. But your curse is gone.”

“I… I’ve been carrying a curse this whole time?” she asked. Severus nodded.

“It’s likely, yes. I assume it hadn’t healed fully?”

“No. It would seal over but I would feel sick as soon as it did. The Healers all said it would be best to keep it open and let it drain naturally, but…”

“That’s outrageous and borderline negligence. There’s a simple enough removal for this particular curse, though the treatment is perhaps worse than the disease. Still, you are healed.”

“Thank you,” she said with a bright smile that turned to a frown. “But how? What did you do?”

“Err,” he ran his hand along the back of his head sheepishly. Endearingly. “I basically forced the curse to remove itself from you in the most expedient way possible. There are gentler ways to do it; I would normally cut open the wound and do my best to draw the curse out over a few weeks, but you didn’t have that kind of time.”

“No,” she mused. “I’ve had concussions before, but never like that. What in the seven hells was that?”

“ _ That _ was the particular twist that dear old Bella put on the curse. Her own brand, if you will. The curse will do its best to weaken you over time with headaches and constant pain and its refusal to heal, all of which you had. But when it senses that you are weak enough, it will attack. Somehow Bellatrix found a way for the curse to replicate itself in every blood cell, so when it attacks, it shreds those cells to pieces.”

Hermione blanched. “If you hadn’t been here-”

“You wouldn’t have been concussed in the first place,” he interrupted. 

“But eventually, I would have weakened enough that the curse would have killed me because I stubbed my toe or some such nonsense.” She laid a hand on his. “Thank you.”

He looked away. “There’s no need to thank me. If I’d done my job properly, you wouldn’t have had the curse in the first place.”

She scoffed. “You could hardly have known the Snatchers were going to find us. That’s not your fault.”

“No, but I could have found a way to get you all out before you were tortured. I should have-”

She laid three fingers gently across his mouth. “I don’t blame you, Severus Snape. You carried far too much for one person and you’re still carrying it, so let me lighten it a little: You’ve saved me.”

His lips pressed together and his tongue darted out to wet them, catching across Hermione’s fingers as they went. The touch was electrifying and went right to her groin. The ache she always felt in his presence returned full force. 

They both froze, locked in the tension of the moment. One wrong move- one single thought in the wrong direction and everything would be ruined.

Severus spoke against her fingers. “Are you sure you want this?”

Hermione gulped but her voice was firm. “Absolutely.”

“Fucking finally.” Severus surged up to pull her to him but Hermione held her hand firmly over his mouth.

“Wait, wait!” she said. She ignored Severus’ confused looks as she grasped the end of her wand and pointed it toward her face. Mint washed through her mouth and the residual gross feeling disappeared. She tossed her wand somewhere on the floor behind her. She removed her hand from his mouth with a grin. “Now you can kiss me.”

He was still laughing when their lips met.

Neither was particularly experienced and he had an awful lot of nose to contend with but neither complained. They clutched at each other, warring for dominance with tongues and teeth and hands. Her scarf flew first, then his ascot. She kissed her way down his neck, pausing at the red scars Nagini had left him.

“It’s all right. They don’t hurt anymore,” he whispered, and Hermione laid a gentle kiss against the scar tissue. Severus moaned and bucked beneath her, his erection pressing right against her core. She kissed and sucked and nibbled gently on his neck, making him buck over and over.

“Stop that, witch, or I’ll be coming like a green lad before I’m even in you,” he growled, catching her neck with his teeth. She groaned and bucked as he had before.

They removed her robes and Hermione set to work on his buttons but only managed three with her trembling hands. She hissed between her teeth at the dozens of tiny buttons still left before passing a hand over them. They sheared off and flew across the room, his robes gaping open to reveal the pale skin underneath. Hermione kissed her way down his chest, caressing his ribs and sucking on his nipples as she went. She nuzzled the sparse hair leading to his core and growled against his covered erection.

Severus wound his hands in her hair and pulled her up to kiss her again. To kiss her like she was his air. To breathe her in as though she was life itself. He waved a hand irritatedly over the two of them and the cool air of the room rushed over them as their clothes flung themselves into a pile in the corner.

His rigid cock thrust straight up and it was only a matter of a moment before she had scooted herself forward to the right position. She whined and ground herself down on him, but he hesitated.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“Really, Severus? Now?” she ground out between clenched teeth. He huffed out a breath.

“Yes, really. Please tell me you’re sure because I can’t stop after this and-”

“I’m. Fucking. Sure.”

Hermione ground down, Severus thrust up, and he slid into her wet sheath all the way to his balls. They shouted in unison and wrapped their arms tightly around each other. It wasn’t the slow, unhurried lovemaking of her dreams but it was so much better. It was frantic and it was raw and it was  _ perfect _ .

Severus threw his head back and panted, thrusting into Hermione as hard and fast as he could. Hermione met him stroke for stroke, sometimes circling her hips around him. He guided her to lean back gently, holding her by the arms, and thrust gently into her g-spot.

She forgot how to scream as she came around him. She could feel herself pulsing around his cock and the fullness of the sensation sent her careening harder and farther than she ever had before. She’d heard the phrase “soul-shattering” to describe sex before but had never related to it. She’d dismissed it as poetic nonsense. Who could possibly want that, she reasoned. It sounded painful.

Now she knew; and knowing, wanted. Again and again and again.

He laid her on her back, his movements smooth and slow now as he struggled to catch his breath.

“Are you- Are you taking-”

She nodded frantically. “Yes, I’m safe.”

“Oh thank Merlin.” He lifted her legs to his shoulders and thrust deeply into her, caressing that same spot. She moaned at every thrust and felt herself coiling tighter and tighter- but she found herself stuck at the edge. Every motion was perfect and wonderful and everything she wanted, but-

“I’ve got you,” he said, swiping a thumb through her juices and circling her engorged clit. He flicked along the top edge and circled again, and she shattered. She forgot her name. She forgot her cat’s name. She forgot that Hogwarts and Earth and the whole damn universe existed. Dimly she felt him thrust hard and deep into her, touching the very deepest parts of her womb, and erupting with a shout.

They collapsed together.

\-----

“Well,” Severus said quietly, “this is not how I expected this day to go.”

Hermione laughed next to him, running her fingers through the sparse hair on his chest. 

“Nor I, but I find I’m not overly bothered by unpredictability. Are you?”

Severus raised his head to look at her. “Have I gone mad or does your average syllable count increased?”

Hermione grinned. “It’s an unfortunate problem, I admit. It drove Ronald positively insane.”

Severus plopped his head back on the pillow, pulling Hermione up with him to kiss her fingers one by one.

“He would. The cretin could hardly conceive of the word ‘unpredictability’ at the best of times, let alone after coitus. I, however, find it endearingly arousing.”

Hermione blinked at him as he rolled to move her under him. “Already? But I thought-”

“You do that too much,” he said and sank to the hilt. He captured Hermione’s mouth and they ceased discussion until much later.

\-----

The walk back to the castle was quiet, each wrapped in their own thoughts. Their hands kept twitching with the need to hold one another, but they didn’t dare. The snow was already melting under their feet, the storm having passed nearly as quickly as it descended. Liesel Jacobson marched ahead of them, unaware that her two professors were far more focused on each other than they were on her mistake.

They reached the gates of Hogwarts just as the sun was setting. Severus placed a hand on Hermione’s sleeve to prevent her from entering but waved the student through.

“Run along, Jacobson, and find Madame Pomfrey. Make sure you’re all right then find your head of house. I’m sure Professor Sprout will have a few words for you.”

The girl gulped and ran as fast as her still-growing legs could take her like an awkward, lumbering gazelle. Hermione watched her with some fondness.

“Ah, were we ever so young?”

“I? Never.” He pulled her into the shadows of the brick supports that held the gates and pressed his body against hers. She captured his lips and they caressed with hands and mouths for many long moments until both were flushed and breathing deeply.

“I don’t want to go in,” Hermione whined, resting her head against the brick. Severus tucked his head onto her shoulder, caressing her breast through her robes.

“Nor I,” he said. “I would build a cottage on this very spot and marry you and make love to you every day for the rest of my life if I could.”

Hermione pulled him up to stare at his face held in her hands.

“Would you?” she asked. “Would you truly?”

He smiled and pressed a kiss to her palm. “I would. I  _ do _ .”

She whimpered and bucked desperately against him, and he chuckled under his breath.

“Goodness, if this is the reaction I get from just mentioning marriage, I wonder what will happen when I actually ask you.”

Hermione laughed. “Warn me in advance so I can stock up on fortification potions, if you please. I imagine we’ll both exhaust ourselves celebrating.”

He laughed heartily and she was struck by how much younger he looked when he was happy. She had found his face fascinating before but seeing it now, she made it her mission to make him laugh as much as possible.

“Come, Professor Granger, and let’s pretend we’re professionals long enough to feign ill and escape from dinner together.”

Hermione grinned as she took his outheld hand and they passed through the gates together.

“Your rooms or mine? I have some interesting ideas about your bedroom.”


End file.
